The hairs on the back of my neck are bristling. I hear the heavy and dull thud of something hit the ground and a dragging step. I run. I just run as far and as fast as I can. Someone is following me. I can hear their footsteps thudding after mine in step with my heart. The parking lot. I must get to the parking lot. Flying down the stairs I am as a bird in flight soaring fast and far.
In the lot there is a cop car, a beat to shit geo metro, a shiny lexus, and a mazda miata. I run to the miata and slam my elbow into the driver’s side window. With a slight pop and a crash the window falls into the door. Reaching inside I unlock the car and slide in. The key is in the ignition but when I turn it nothing happens. No sound. Nothing. Down to the left of the steering column right about my left knee is a bright red pull switch. The car roars to life and I speed away. Whoever owned this car sucked at the aesthetic upkeep but did an amazing job on the engine. I am on the freeway in no time. But where do I go? What do I do? Why have I stolen this car? Well the cops can’t help me. That much I am certain of. Otherwise I would have been safe in that hotel room No, whatever this is it is big. Someone is willing to go to great lengths to get to me. They will stop at nothing to do so. I need answers, cash, and to disappear. No credit or debit cards. Someone is tracking those for sure. I throw my cell phone out the window and drive north. I have safety in the north. I have secrecy in the north. I can disappear in the north.
I drive through the remainder of the night and well into the next day. Alternating between crying over my loss and the unfairness of a life cut so short. To rage that this is all happening. To desperation of trying to figure out what is happening. I stop only for food and gas paying out of an amount of cash that I had sewn in to my purse years ago. A secret compartment that I had to use a knife to open. I hid the cash there for just this kind of emergency, an emergency I prayed to all the gods that I would never have. The road is beginning to blur the streetlights running together I am so far past tired that I don’t even care what happens to me anymore. All I care about is reaching the safety of the redwood forest and the secrets held within.
I pull over to a rest stop and leave the car unlocked, window down, and key in the ignition. All I take is my purse. There is a lot of crime here and hopefully the car will disappear on its own. I never did intend to keep it I just wanted to borrow it. Much like umbrellas I don’t buy cars. I just rent them on karmic credit from the universe. All through college I would never buy an umbrella. I would just find one when I needed it just laying there waiting for use. Then when I put it down again someone else would use it. To me cars are much the same thing. I find or am given them when I need them but never have to actually purchase one. They just show up when necessary and leave when they have served their purpose.
The next five miles need to be made on foot. Where I am going there are no roads. I just need to head east, straight east to safety. There are many ways to get there but eventually all journeys lead me back here. I have no food with me but there is always food in the forest. Especially a temperate redwood forest in summer. The first thing I find are the massively oversized clover shaped plants that taste of sour apple. A personal favorite of mine. A few quick handfuls later and I start to feel better.
The shade of the dense foliage cools me. The deep rich scent of loam in the air refreshes me. I stand still for the first time in days and just breathe. A gentle breeze caresses my face as if in welcome. I am coming home.
A few calm hours of walking and hiding my tracks in the spongy moss and I am safe at last.
As I top the last hill I see the table top rock. A huge circle of rock hand hewn but expertly worked to look like a natural formation. I climb on top of the waist high formation and face east. Pulling out a mirror from my purse I hold it high and try to direct a few flashes of sunlight to the next hill. I have to wait almost an eternity but some flashes are returned. Only then do I step down off the table rock to continue my journey. Nearing the top of the hill I am greeted by many old friends. People call out to me with open arms and warm greetings.
“Wanderer you look tired.” says a soft voice behind me
“I am wise one, that I am.”
“Then come, eat, rest, and then tell us your tale. Your rooms have been prepared.”
I follow slowly and I am very tired. There are many moss hills around nestled between the towering trees. A vine is pulled and a doorway in the moss opens. Perfectly formed stone steps lead into the dim world below. As we descend the door above closes once more and the soft light brightens. The cold stone walls surround use enclosing us in. Just when I think I can’t stand it any more the world opens up with light and life. There are beautiful citrus trees everywhere. Every speck of ground is used for growing crops, herbs, and medicinal plants. They even grow up the walls. Soft water pores onto the plants from above. Such an intricate watering system that looks somehow organic. Miniature fountains are everywhere. The air is heavy with citrus, jasmine, and lavender. Other plants make themselves known as you pass. There is no one scent to describe the the underground eden we find ourselves strolling through. In the center is a table set for two and piled high with all my favorites beef lo mein, shrimp scampi, and an amazing fruit salad featuring the most recent harvests. We eat to the music of the fountains and enjoy the silence.
“You have endured much wanderer.”
“Yes.”
“You need rest.”
“Yes.”
With that we rise from the table and I walk to my rooms. There are as many corridors off from the garden as there are numbers on a clock. I take the corridor by the pomegranate tree. Three doors down on the right is where I live. Spacious rooms for underground but I did help build them. None of that post modernist crap but an old world cottage of mud and wood. Hand crafted walls which hold all my treasures from stones to plants to trinkets gathered the world over. All of it is here and I finally feel safe at last. A soothing bath in a stone tub and off to bed. A huge canopy bed covered with white gauzy fabrics delicate to the touch. I smell fresh linens and climb in. When my head hits the pillow the lights all fade out. I drift off to blessed darkness.
The night was dark, cool and not too cool. The perfect summer night to sleep under the stars. The new moon shinning behind my back, I hope it brings me luck. The old ways speak much of suck charms and spells. Unfortunately delay in such thoughts will only make me more likely to be caught. I must escape this place and have been planning for months. A small bag of food and clothing should be enough that I can get to the house I see in my sleep. I just hope the place is not just a figment of my imagination. I have seen the house and how to get there so often in my sleep that I don’t know what is real any more. I must be going crazy, here I am at midnight duct taping a flashlight to a bike in order to be able to see to ride tonight. The plan is simple just leave and never look back. Implementing this on the other hand will defiantly prove more difficult. Not daring to turn on the light in case I would be seen, I leave the only home I have ever known in hopes of finding the place in my dreams. Rounding the bend in the old dirt road, I doubt myself again. Can leaving be this simple? Unlatching the back gate as I had done so many times before I hope the squeak of the rusty old hinges does not stir anyone. Which would be amazing considering I am now half a mile from the main house. Perhaps it is the people whose patterns I don’t know that I am most afraid of. Still not daring to turn on the light I ride past my neighbor’s house looking for where the back road turns into my grandmother’s driveway. I want the road just past it. Hopefully no one else is up. I have never spoken to those neighbors and they would undoubtedly not understand my plight. Every rustle of leaves, every animal stirring, and every sound from all around me makes me jump. All I want is to get away from him and to that house in my dreams.
Life would be so easy if I would just turn around and go back, I know exactly what waits behind me and nothing about what is in front of me. I need to put as many miles between me and the place I come from as possible to night. That way when I am discovered missing the cops will have the wrong search radius. If I ride strong and hard I should be able to make twenty miles by daybreak. I have been training up for this for the last three months. Riding as far in one direction as I can then turning around and seeing if I can make it home before I drop. Home, such a funny word, if home is where the heart is then I have been living in the wrong place for all too many years. The house in my dreams is where my heart lays. Now for the most risky part yet of this journey, passing my neighbors house and not getting caught. Helpful that they don’t know that they are to be looking for me. Now, should I ride quickly past, or slowly and silently? It all depends really on whether or not they have a motion sensor light. God I hate those things. You can be the most silent person on the planet and still a dam light goes off. Which is far more obvious than any twig snapping. I should just go back home, but sneaking back in can be far more dangerous. On the inside I know where everyone is by sound, on the outside, someone could have moved about the house and I would be caught due to not knowing where they had moved to. I would be beaten for sure if I was caught sneaking back in. I can just here him saying “where did you think you were going, were you out with a boy, are you disgracing this family again?” a boy, ha! Why would I spend time with a boy? Worthless creatures, all they do is poke a girl, get her pregnant, and then beat her for not doing every little thing they could possibly want. I never want to be with a boy.
How long have I been standing here? This is not good. If I am to get out of here I need to pay more attention, and make a decision! To walk quietly, or ride swiftly. I am letting my fear get the better of me, I should just ride quickly. Running scared is a lot faster than running mad, so I should be able to put this fear to good work and ride quickly. The gravel crunching under my wheels must be loud enough to wake the dead, but that must be because I am focusing on the sound I am making rather than the sounds of my environment. After I am on the main road I will switch the light on, for now I just need to hope I don’t hit anything. Ironic that I want the light when I can’t use it, and plan to use it when I don’t need it.
I know these roads, I have ridden all the ones around me so that I know them in daylight and darkness. Most of the ones that are out past about forty miles I know from my dreams. I have been shown every detail between me and where I need to go so that hopefully I won’t become lost. Though this journey might just be one of those of self discovery in which I need to learn that the place I am looking for is only in my heart or some such shit. In which case I am completely screwed because what child has any skills in which legitimate money can be made. I can’t go back now, so I need to go forward. My worst fear is some idiot cop picking me up and taking me back home. They would never understand what goes on there, but hopefully that is behind me and I need not think about any of it ever again.
Why am I so apprehensive about this, if I was doing the right thing then shouldn’t I feel better about this trip, or is this why people just stay in their ruts and refuse to move. I don’t like this feeling, like I am doing something horribly and in explicitly wrong. Which maybe I am, but I can’t go back now. Perhaps this is why I am so unsure of myself. Burning a bridge before I have reached sight of the other side seems completely ridiculous, yet here I am. Lighting that bridge before I even know that there is land on the other side. Of course there must be land on the other side, people don’t just put up a bridge that ends in the middle of the ocean or something, but that is not the point. How far have I gone, oh yeah the light, I don’t want to get hit out here. Usually by this point I am beginning to feel tired, but I guess when you have more initiative, than just riding for a work out, you tend to go farther. Once dawn hits I won’t need to worry about this light, or being picked up by the cops till tomorrow, so tonight I need to find a place to camp. I was shown a good place and I brought some paint to change the color on my bike and other clothes. I should probably even cut my hair if I can do so without it being obvious that I cut it after all I have no skill in hair nor have I ever tried to cut it on my own.
The place I have been looking for is right in front of me. The gentle sloping hills covered with fruit bearing trees, the sweet sent of cherries in the air, the sky is the bluest I have ever seen and there is not a cloud in the sky. The perfectly manicured walkway under my feet is so steep I can’t ride my bike on, and it seems wrong somehow to even try. The snow caped mountains to my left are in breathtaking clarity. Everything seems too perfect somehow. The birds are singing the sweetest melody I have ever heard, and yet I am almost too anxious to continue. The high walls and gilded wooden gate barely coming into view are both a sight for sore eyes and the worst thing to face yet. If the place I see so vividly I my mind is real, how did I know of it, or did I just travel around till I found something that looked fairly similar. Still, I haven’t eaten in days and should probably see if anyone lives here, if they do I can ask them if I can eat some of their cherries before going on my way. No matter how hungry I am I will not steal food. Some things are just wrong no matter what the situation, and it is obvious that someone lives here; manicured orchards and well kept driveways don’t just happen. Well the only thing left to do is walk up there and find someone to ask about the cherries. Still the gate is so far up there and I am really tired. If I take a nap before continuing then I might not get there till after dark, then there would be no one around to ask for food.
The day is warmer than I first thought, and this hill is no longer gently sloping. The hill is almost too hard to walk up the slope is too steep. The fruit on the trees is looking more tempting than ever. Why am I so concerned with asking permission to eat some fruit? No one would notice if just a few pieces went missing. Besides I am really hungry and I might never get to the gate at the top of this hill or mountain at this rate.
Only a little ways farther, I feel like I am walking almost vertical, but I know that is impossible. Still there have been quite a few impossible things I have faced on this journey. What is one more thing before I decide what to do? Why does it seem like the more I think about the fruit, the farther away that gate becomes, and the steeper the slope. Maybe this is some kind of test, if I just stop thinking about food all together then I would be at the gate in no time. Still I don’t know how thoughts can affect reality. The entire idea seems ridiculous to me.
Why does this gate look fake, like some kind of toy or movie set piece relocated here so that they wouldn’t need to pay for storage or something? Maybe this is a movie set I stumbled on, but that would be ridiculous, why would they use actual fruit trees when fake ones behave so much better. There aren’t even hinges on the gate, what is the point of having a gate if it can’t be used. That would be a good trick for a castle though. Have everything set up so that people think you have a drawbridge and instead you have some wood placed in front of stone. Add some smaller man doors around the sides of the castle so that people can get in and out, which means that there must be another entrance to this place, most likely to the side of this fake gate. Judging from the change in the stone work, that to the right should be the door. If they have a fake gate made of wood, then they probably have a fake stone portion of the wall which is actually a door. Odd people, and rather confusing in a completely logical manner.
Why I believe? Ever since I got here I have been asked one difficult question after another. They say that I can’t leave till I have been enlightened; I still don’t even know what that means. I don’t even know how long I have been here. I find it almost impossible to keep track of time and have almost given up, perhaps I should keep track of years though. Knowing how many years seems important somehow, but I am not sure of how, or to whom. So many things seem that way. I have forgotten much of my old life, and spend most of each day in different forms of meditation, maybe this is enlightenment. Forgetting all of the life before I came here and just knowing the simply joy and mystery to these questions and meditations. I have spent three days so far coming up with why I believe and more importantly what I believe in, because it seems impossible to believe but not in any one particular thing. Though I was told not to list off what I believe only that I believe and why, this is to be some kind of special speech I make for the coming of winter dinner. Giving the speech is to be some kind of high honor, but I am not so sure. I think it is some way of testing my mentor as to what I have been learning and how far I have progressed. I have only one more day to think up why I believe and whether or not it is important to believe in any thing particular. Some of the other kids are complaining about their questions, and others are trying to get help by holding discussions about their question. No one knows my question, because I don’t want them to know. I want to come up with my answer all on my own and not let anyone tell me how to phrase things differently. Why does everyone here seem to be better at these questions than I am?
Everyone is better than me and not just in the questions. I am so dam clumsy in my training; I keep falling on the jumps. I will never be as graceful as all the others. My legs are sore from the stance I need to hold for the exercise, and my back is sore from all the punching and arm movements. They won’t let me spar with anyone, saying that I can do such things when I am better trained or I will hurt myself. When we practice kata I am always facing the wrong direction and doing the wrong thing. Everyone else is perfectly synchronized and I am the one who is lost. There are so many kata and each one is so different it is hard to remember where I am moving and what I am to be doing. The master says that this will all come with time, but I am tired of looking foolish in front of everyone, and I know everyone is starting to get ticked off at me that I can’t keep up with them. The way they look at me with almost constant disapproval. I just wish I was better at all these forms of training.
Still this place is far better than where I was before. There is food here, heat during the winter, and enough clothing to stay warm during cold weather. I am grateful for these things. I sort of wonder what happened when I left. How did my parents take it when I just up and left? There is no contact with the outside world here, so I have no idea if they even tried to look for me let alone want me back. I guess it doesn’t really matter, I am not going back, this place is not without its demands and stress but, at least I feel safe.
Standing up in front of everyone like this always makes me nervous. My mentor said that my answer to, why I believe, was so good that I should not be afraid during my speech. Still the grand meeting hall, packed with all the people who live in this wondrous place, the ancient looking walls, and high vaulted sealing are quite intimidating, especially when everyone is interested in what I have to say and to pick apart my arguments on something as intimate as why I believe. Well I hope this isn’t too bad, so here goes nothing.
I wake up with a start. The awful dream of how I got here the first time. I hated the farm. The tyrannous father. The insane relatives. The teachers who knew nothing about me. I always felt lost within that world and longed to reach something deeper. Life couldn’t be as shallow as they all tried to convince me it was. That is how and why I found these people to begin with. They took me in and raised me as their own. Why did I ever leave such peace? What was I searching for? No amount of currency could ever mean more than a single plant here.
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